Letter to the Editor: Goodlatte votes against environment

This February, the League of Conservation Voters published it’s annual score card on how members of Congress voted on bills with environmental impacts. In 2016, the House of Representatives considered 38 environmental bills that ranged from blocking safeguards from mining waste to attacking the Endangered Species Act. Many of these bills died in committee or in the Senate. Regardless of the outcome, it should be noted that our Congressman Bob Goodlatte, in all 38 of these bills, voted against environmental stewardship.

At every opportunity, Mr. Goodlatte voted against clean air and clean water protections. In H.R. 5538, his vote favored logging in National Forests over hunting and fishing – even though recreational use in the National Forest System supports more jobs and brings greater economic benefits than industrial logging.

Mr. Goodlatte is in lock-step with the Republican party’s anti-green voting record. In 2016, only three of Virginia’s eight Republican Representatives dared to cross the line one time: Congresswoman Barbara Comstock voted for funds to repair the disastrous water infrastructure in Flint, Michigan; Congressman William Hurt voted to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve from industrialization; Congressman Scott Rigall voted to preserve EPA funds for law enforcement against criminal polluters.

Who has spine to put the environmental health of our beautiful valley above partisan politics? Who has the common sense to promote clean industries that will not foul our own nest the way Avtex did? Our representative Bob Goodlatte? Given his voting record, not likely.